


Familiar but Foreign

by cloudosaurus



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Introspection, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Short, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 13:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudosaurus/pseuds/cloudosaurus
Summary: Because Mello has grown into something beautiful and dangerous that makes Matt’s heart skip a beat and the cigarette between his lips fall to the wet ground as his mouth parts, and the late autumn rain starts to feel warm rather than cold.A short series of mini-vignettes exploring Matt and Mello's relationship from childhood to adulthood.





	Familiar but Foreign

Mello was foreign when Matt landed at Wammy’s, stranded in a strange place he would be forced to call home, but that he knew even then would never feel like one. Mello was the small child with a stubborn chin and angry eyes that contrasted the compliancy suggested by his haircut. He subjected Matt to suspicious glares and stalked him down the hallway between classes, so that one of the first things Matt mastered at the orphanage was the layout of spaces he could disappear to without fear of being found. Eventually, he would smoke his first cigarettes here, too.

Mello became familiar as their limbs turned lanky and faces pimpled, and even though they were still growing, they were acutely aware of their futures shrinking. As teenagers often do, they convinced themselves that they either didn’t give a fuck, or that the standards of probability and logic didn’t apply to them because they were invincible. In retrospect, Matt would find it ironic that Mello – ever standing on tiptoe and grasping for L, the human embodiment of these standards, with outstretched fingers that never seemed to reach – fell into the latter category. But at the time, they never really talked – and besides, he didn’t care – so they would find a fragile sort of solace in the presence of each other’s existence, as Mello waltzed into Matt’s room a bit later every night like it belonged to him and even though Matt didn’t acknowledge his presence, he let the blond sit close, cross-legged on the stained floor littered with cigarette butts and dirty socks and an escalating number of chocolate wrappers. Mello would watch Matt either kill or be killed on the small, smudged Nintendo screen in silence, and they both felt reassured by the momentary overlap of their worlds, even though neither knew just what he was afraid of.

Mello is familiar but foreign when they meet five years after he disappeared from Wammy’s, having taken along a piece of Matt’s heart unbeknownst to them both. They stand in the rain, looking at each other – cerulean meeting jade – and even though Mello shouldn’t be able to read his eyes through the deep amber of his goggles, Matt’s mouth goes dry as he suddenly feels much, much more than he ever thought he’d feel as he stares at the blond. Because Mello has grown into something beautiful and dangerous that makes Matt’s heart skip a beat and the cigarette between his lips fall to the wet ground as his mouth parts, and the late autumn rain starts to feel warm rather than cold.

Mello is familiar but foreign as he grabs Matt by the hips with fingers that are going to leave bruises in their wake, yanks his jeans over his ass and down his trembling thighs, and pushes Matt onto the bed to fuck his skinny body instead of making love. And Matt grips the sheets with white knuckles and clenches his eyes shut and doesn’t make a sound even though he’s being torn apart as he imagines Mello’s face before it was scarred and when his blue eyes were still bright.


End file.
